TriWizard Alternatives
by Larry Huss
Summary: The TriWizard Tournament was a year-long plot by Voldemort's minions. Something that long and complicated with so many parts all having to mesh perfectly had many occasions when something could have gone wrong. Especially as some of the actions of the false Moody required experimental spells, never before attempted. Some minor glitches could have brought disaster for the villains.


I do not own, or receive any benefit from the Harry Potter Properties.

TriWizard Alternatives

by Larry Huss

TriWizard I

All the students of Hogwarts, and the contingents of Durmstrang, Beauxbatons, and the Ministry officials were collected in the Great Hall. A high level of electric nervousness filled the air; even the normally phlegmatic Alastor Moody was seen to have a fixed and maniacal grin on his face. As the Host, Dumbledore tapped the Goblet of Fire with his wand.

The mystic artifact began to glow even brighter, and then with a great burst of light slips of paper began to shoot out of the Goblet's mouth. The first grabbed out of the air was caught by Ludo Bagman. "Victor Krum! Durmstrang!" rang out in the air.

The next was snagged by the Host himself: "Anatoly Dobrinin! Durmstrang?"

A smoothly done _Accio_ by the Headmistress of Beauxbatons brought her another piece of paper. "'Harry Potter'? What madness is this? Why is there no Champion from Beauxbatons?" Meanwhile, all the rest of the slips exploded in festive fire.

Confused and Confounded it might be, but the Goblet of Fire did know one thing. It was selecting for the TriWizard Tournament, not the TriSchool Cup.

TriWizard II

All the students of Hogwarts, and the contingents of Durmstrang, Beauxbatons, and the Ministry officials were collected in the Great Hall. A high level of electric nervousness filled the air; even the normally phlegmatic Alastor Moody was seen to have a fixed and maniacal grin on his face. As the Host, Dumbledore tapped the Goblet of Fire with his wand.

The mystic artifact began to glow even brighter, and then with a great burst of light slips of paper began to shoot out of the Goblet's mouth. The first grabbed out of the air was caught by Ludo Bagman. "Victor Krum! Durmstrang!" rang out in the air.

The Headmaster of Hogwarts caught the next piece of parchment that was projected into the air. "Harry Potter?" Dumbledore said with some confusion. He did not notice the smile on his old friend Moody had grown far wider.

Another piece of foolscap flew up, and was snagged in mid-air by Madam Maxime. "Michael Suvoloff?"

And another came out of the bell shaped mouth of the Goblet, "Abul al-hazard!" Then it was "Fred Weasley!" Followed by "Fleur Delacour," "Cedric Diggory," "Martha ," and then more for the next ten minutes until the capacious body of the Goblet was empty. In all, thirty-seven names had been selected, presenting certainly logistical problems for those preparing the tests for the champions.

After another hour of hubbub and loud shouts of anger, the greatest minds in European Wizardry came to the conclusion that perhaps, maybe, possibly… the Goblet of Fire had been got at.

An embassy from the Ministry, led by the august Cornelius Fudge himself, had meanwhile arrived. After a quick review of the budget approved for the total cost of the Tournament by the host country, the protests from the guest Schools that they refused to be coerced in picking up expenses that were not their responsibility, and the likelihood that hostile interests might strike again, a series of new Tasks were decided upon.

Accordingly, the new Tasks were announced, to be completed over a three day period that week (the embarrassed officials involved wishing to get the whole thing over with, with the greatest dispatch):

Wandless greased pig herding.

Explosive Gobstones, International Federation Rules.

Speed Jenga, Wizard Style.

A certain Dark Lord was not pleased.

_Refer to An 1_

TriWizard III

All the students of Hogwarts, and the contingents of Durmstrang, Beauxbatons, and the Ministry officials were collected in the Great Hall. A high level of electric nervousness filled the air; even the normally phlegmatic Alastor Moody was seen to have a fixed and maniacal grin on his face. As the Host, Dumbledore tapped the Goblet of Fire with his wand.

The mystic artifact began to glow even brighter, and then with a great burst of light slips of paper began to shoot out of the Goblet's mouth. The first grabbed out of the air was caught by Ludo Bagman.

As he unfolded it he shouted out: "The first Champion is... is..." Suddenly he turned to his left and thrust the paper into Headmaster Karkaroff's hands. "You read it; must be your school's Champion," Bagman said.

"I can not read this! What sort of English joke is this?" Karkaroff barked out.

Meanwhile, the Goblet spat out a second, then a third and fourth piece of parchment. Each fell to the ground as the other school heads had rushed up to where Durmstrang's leader and the British politician had descended in a barrage of insults and accusations about who was being disrespectful of whom, or being an ignorant fool.

"What the Mordred is this gibberish?" Albus Dumbledore said after he had grabbed his educational colleague's hand with the parchment that had the first name on it, and had wrestled it to a standstill so that it could be read. Instead of plain English, French, or even Cyrillic, the script on it was three lines of triangles, circles, slashes, and other symbols that none of the scholarship of the Headmasters or Mistress could decipher.

For several moments the authority figures squabbled in front of the impressionable youths of Europe's premier educational institutions before they thought to gather up the other names (?) that had left the Goblet of Fire. Somehow there were now eight of them, some retrieved from the crowd of students still waiting for the announcements of the Champions' names, evidently moved there by some errant breezes stirred up by rapidly moving robes.

All were in the same odd symbology, unidentified until Madame Maxime cried out: "I comprehend! All eight are in the script of the Linear A language of ancient Crete!"

"Well, what do they say, woman?" Bagman demanded.

"Alas, the language is lost in the mists of time, and no one now living understands it, or what each sign of the script means," Madame Maxime lamented.

"Then what bloody good are you bloody foreigners?" Bagman spat out.

There followed a resounding splat as the Headmistress slapped him squarely on his face. It took several minutes for the retrieval of Bagman's unconscious body from the student throng where it had ended up after the energy of the blow from the nearly three yards (in heels) tall lady was absorbed by the many bodies he had impacted with. When he was retrieved it was noted that there were two more slips in the Linear A symbols lying on the ground near the Goblet.

Needless to say this was a disturbing discovery, and a flurry of diagnostic spells was sent at the Goblet by some of the finest Magical minds of Europe that were gathered there that day. It soon became apparent that the Goblet of Fire had been the recipient of numerous spells tacked on after its creation, some undoubtedly meant to fudge its operations. As the investigation continued it became clear that while some of the spells were of recent origin, some were dating back into antiquity. Evidently the Goblet had been used as an oracle of sorts for several pantheons and shrines, at which attempts at cheating were liable to have been attempted.

For the sake of their dignity, and to keep the respect of both the assembled students and the gathered Press, it might have been wiser if the unfolding examination of the artifact had been done in a closed session. But the spirit of the hunt was in the scholars and by the time that thought hit them things had gone on too long for a pretense that things were under control to be maintained.

Eventually the Hall had to be cleared for meals, and the errant Goblet relocated to the Hogwarts Headmaster's office for further investigation. However, among most of those staying at the school, the events of the day were the main topic of conversation and speculation.

"I only saw four parchments come out of the Goblet, how did they end up with ten?" Asked Harry Potter, who had been observing with the sharp eyes (corrected to 20-20 by his glasses) of a Seeker.

Ron Weasley actually explained that little mystery: "Oh, one of the things got blown into the crowd near Fred and George. Once they saw it they made some fakes as soon as they could and tossed them into pile. They said some jokers from Durmstrang, or whatever, that were near them did the same. I mean, they copied the signs on the parchment; they have no idea what they wrote though.

"I'm kind of disappointed none of the Headmasters-"

"Or the Headmistress," Hermione interejected.

"Or her," Ron continued, his mind totally synchronized with Hermione Granger's for a change, "didn't notice that a bunch of them were written in the same handwriting. The others were all put in as singletons."

"Well," Harry said, "maybe when the Goblet translated it to that Linear A it made them all look similar. Though there should still have been at least three handwritings obvious in the signs in that case..." he mused.

"Anyway, the Triwizards thing has been going on for about seven hundred years, more or less. But that Linear A stuff ain't been used for like... a couple of thousand years more than that. So what gives?" Ron asked.

"Really? How'd you know that one Ron?"

"I looked it up," said the redhead, looking directly into a pair of very approving brown eyes.

The owner of the brown eyes frowned in concentration for a moment, then replied: "The Tournament may only be seven hundred years old, but how old is the Goblet? I distinctly heard the school heads say things like this spell they'd found was Coptic, and that one was Phoenician, and another Assyrian. It must have been around for a long time before the TriWizard.

"In fact that sort of makes sense. All those cheating spells being thrown on it until it finally couldn't just keep on going and it crashed, and rebooted back at its original language. Like a computer defaulting to its setup parameters."

"Computer?" Said Ron.

The current (as opposed to the classic) meaning of the term was explained to him that evening up in the Gryffindor Common Room.

_Refer to An 2_

TriWizard IV

Harry Potter looked around him to see what geological resources he had available: a sandy arena a hundred yards in radius, some scattered boulders.

His biological and crafted resources seemed a bit scarce also: himself, a wand, a giant bird's nest of thigh-thick tree branches, a clutch of beyond-ostrich-sized eggs (one suspiciously golden in color), and a battleship-worthy chain with a large stake on one end and a dragon on the other.

And that was the problem.

Professor Moody had hinted that Harry might summon his Firebolt broom from his room back in the dorms and swoop in and pluck the obviously thirty or more pound golden egg out of the nest while on the fly. Perhaps Professor Moody hadn't played Quidditch when he was at school. Trying to snag something that heavy while going at any speed would more likely have resulted in a broken arm, or dislocated shoulder than an unbroken egg.

Also, while Harry was powerful for his age and experience he was uncertain of his ability to use the summoning spell on something that far away that he didn't have in sight.

Alright; first he'd try it the easy way.

"_Accio_!" Harry cried out, pointing his wand at the golden egg, to no effect.

Then again, he might have to do things a bit different.

"_Locomotor sand_!" He said, pointing his wand to scoop up a good five-hundredweight of the stuff. He had it lift up into the air, released the spell to let it disperse a bit, and then reestablished his target-lock on the increased volume. Then he just kept his wand pointed at the head of the dragon, making it shut its eyes, confused its hearing, and ensured it wasn't going to be doing any tracking-smelling while in its own little sandstorm. Certainly it tried to toss its head and move out of the abrasive stuff, and bat the grains out of its face with its front limbs, but as Harry walked up to the unguarded nest and plucked up the golden egg the dragon had still failed to find a way to deal with the distraction that was too thick to see through, not solid enough to rend with its claws, and about as flammable as you'd expect sand to be.

When Harry dropped off the egg at the Judges' Table he received four 9's for his low impact completion of the test from the Judges from the Ministry, Hogwarts, and Beauxbatons, and one 5 from Durmstrang's Headmaster as the dragon might have gotten sand in its ears, or under its eyelids, and obviously this showed the second Hogwarts Champion's callousness toward Magical Beasts.

TriWizard V

Harry Potter looked around him to see what geological resources he had available: a sandy arena a hundred yards in radius, some scattered boulders.

His biological and crafted resources seemed a bit scarce also: himself, a wand, a giant bird's nest of thigh-thick tree branches, a clutch of beyond-ostrich-sized eggs (one suspiciously golden in color), and a battleship-worthy chain with a large stake on one end and a dragon on the other.

And that was the problem.

Professor Moody had hinted that Harry might summon his Firebolt broom from his room back in the dorms and swoop in and pluck the obviously thirty or more pound golden egg out of the nest while on the fly. Perhaps Professor Moody hadn't played Quidditch when he was at school. Trying to snag something that heavy while going at any speed would more likely have resulted in a broken arm or dislocated shoulder than an unbroken egg.

Also, while Harry was powerful for his age and experience he was uncertain of his ability to use the summoning spell on something that far away that he didn't have in sight.

Alright; first he'd try it the easy way.

"_Accio_!" Harry cried out, pointing his wand at the golden egg, to no effect.

'Well,' he thought, 'it's not as if I expected Plan A to work. I hope Hermione is right about Wizards and Logic.'

With that, he cast the spell "_Accio!_" on the whole nest.

The dragon, meanwhile, had come to the end of its chain as close to the wizard as it could get, and was calculating if its flaming breath could give him a toasting. Any noises it heard from behind it were ignored, as they were most likely just the prospective egg-thief's attempted distraction. It wasn't until the slowly moving nest crossed into its field of vision (entirely to its front aspect, for the dragon is the ultimate aerial predator and has no fears of things sneaking up on it) did the creature realize a more cautious defensive strategy might have been called for.

Now it was stymied. The only thing it could do to the wizard would harm its precious eggs. It could only hope.

When Harry pulled the golden egg from the nest and presented it at the Judges' Table he recieved four 9's from the Ministry Judges and the Judges from Hogwarts and Beauxbatons, and a 6 from the Judge for Durmstrang. When asked why the mark was so low he replied, "No real skilled wand-work, no imagination or artistic flair, and a refusal to show courage by going in and getting the egg directly."

The Judge from Beauxbatons was heard to mutter: "Because his Champion has already been graded, and we can't get revenge for his bigotry on _this_ task."

TriWizard VI

Harry Potter looked around him to see what geological resources he had available: a sandy arena a hundred yards in radius, some scattered boulders.

His biological and crafted resources seemed a bit scarce also: himself, a wand, a giant bird's nest of thigh-thick tree branches, a clutch of beyond-ostrich-sized eggs (one suspiciously golden in color), and a battleship-worthy chain with a large stake on one end and a dragon on the other.

And that was the problem.

Professor Moody had hinted that Harry might summon his Firebolt broom from his room back in the dorms and swoop in and pluck the obviously thirty or more pound golden egg out of the nest while on the fly. Perhaps Professor Moody hadn't played Quidditch when he was at school. Trying to snag something that heavy while going at any speed would more likely have resulted in a broken arm or dislocated shoulder than an unbroken egg.

Also, while Harry was powerful for his age and experience he was uncertain of his ability to use the summoning spell on something that far away that he didn't have in sight.

Alright; first he'd try it the easy way.

"_Accio_!" Harry cried out, pointing his wand at the golden egg, to no effect.

'So,' he thought, 'time to go to plan B.'

Pushing all of his concentration and power into his wand Harry cried out the name of the hex. Out came the dreaded curse; missing something the size of a dragon was almost impossible at this range. The _"Bat-Bogey Hex!" _ struck the beast square on its nose.

At first there seemed to be no effect and Harry wondered if Hermione, Ginny, and Ron had all been wrong about how the spell would scale up. Then the dragon began sniffling, followed by an enormous sneeze, and that merely preceded an attack on the beast that the newspaper photographers found wouldn't be published in the next day's editions, as it was simply too horrifying and disgusting for family publications.

While most of the audience was covering its eyes, Harry walked up to nest and picked up the golden exception, and took it to the Judges' Table. There he received four 8's from the judges of the Ministry, Hogwarts, and Beauxbatons, and a 9 from the Judge from Durmstrang… who thought Harry's wand might have been pointed ever so slightly in his direction.

TriWizard VII

It was a brisk Scottish Highland morning on February 24th, 1995, when Harry Potter walked to the edge of the Black Lake (surface ruffled by the strong breeze) outside Hogwarts Castle to compete in the Second Task of the renewed TriWizard Tournament. Under his wizard's cloak he was only wearing an unfashionable swimsuit, improvised holsters for his newly waxed wand, his all purpose Wizard's knife (Type 3-A from Wilkinson's catalog), and a small supply of Gillyweed Neville had got him that was supposed to enable him to breath water on it being chewed.

It was cold; even with a Warming Charm helping the cloak, the only thing that inspired some heat in him were the glimpses of Fleur Delacour's one piece tightly enclosing her body when some errant breeze blew open her cloak. He tore his attention back to the Ministry official going on about the rules for the Task.

Time limit...yadda, yadda... rescue your 'Treasure'... yadda, yadda... be a good sport and don't kill your rivals... yadda, yadda. And a bit of advice to keep your good profile toward the magic mirrors keyed to the large viewing ones acting as display screens for the attending public and media newshawks.

As, one way or another all the contestants had much the same points totals from the First Task, they were all in the water within two minutes of each other. For the slight bit of advantage it gave him Harry was glad he was second, right after Shark-Krum.

As he, newly gilled and flipper-footed (due to the Gillyweed), swam down into the stygian depths he wondered what 'Treasure' of his had been hidden in the Lake. He didn't have an awful lot of precious possessions, after all. Then it struck him what it must be, and he increased his speed and frantic peering into the darkness.

He passed Shark-Krum, involved in some sort of altercation with some House-Elf sized minor aquatic menaces. The Durmstrang Shark-Boy was using his great jaws to bit them in half... and sometimes take a swallow. Harry figured the container must be shaping the human mind contained within the Transfiguration spell. Probably it wouldn't do much good for his sexy Quidditch-star image when those pictures hit the papers. Harry swam on.

At last he saw a dim light up ahead, and heard music much like the singing he had heard when he had finally solved the secret of the Golden Egg.

He swam through the outskirts of the Mer-Folk village until he came to the village center, where a gibbet-like stone structure had four things attached to it by ropes. Just as he feared; there was his Firebolt tied to the stone, surely getting soaked and its spells ruined. Normal water-proofing charms were grand against rain, if you dried the broom off right after you finished the game, but those charms were never meant for prolonged submersion!

The other spots of honor were occupied by people... actual living people bespelled and seemingly sleeping under the water with no difficulty. There was Hermione Granger (if the Firebolt hadn't been down there Harry would have been certain his ever faithful friend would have been his 'Treasure'), Cho Chang (Cedric Diggory's regular date), and a startlingly good looking child, evidently Delacour's objective.

Threatening a trident-wielding Merman Harry got to his broom, and cut it free. Then, after a moment's thought, he swam over to Hermione and began to cut her free also. While she was surely Krum's 'Treasure' (Student-Krum had taken her to the Yule Ball, after all), Harry was uncertain if the Quidditch star would be totally safe around anyone in his current state with blood in the water.

The merman approached vigorously, thrusting out with his trident, evidently thinking the rule was 'one 'Treasure' per Champion.' Not that anything like that had been said in the briefing up Topside. After a moment's hesitation, Harry cast a spell on himself, and his voice amplified by a _Sonorus_ Spell knocked the guard arse-over-teakettle before it fled, dropping its weapon and holding its ears.

Harry was glad that he had been rescuing (perhaps) Hermione, it had made him go through the little mantra W(hat) W(ould) H(ermione) D(o). Just that little chance to think before acting had stopped him from going with his first impulse to blast out with a... blasting hex. As those things tended to go off as soon as they met something thicker than air, and he was currently surrounded by something thicker then air, the effects might have been... unpleasant.

He'd have liked to have rescued both the others also from the danger he was worried Shark-Krum presented, but he was going to be at his limit getting his current burdens to the surface as it was. It might have been his imagination that he felt the Gillyweed starting to wear-off, but it might not be, either. Anyway, he felt it was time to go.

His apprehensions on how long Gillyweed lasted proved spot-on, he'd barely reached the surface before he felt his gills start to shrink and wither. He managed to drag Hermione to the Judge's table, where the Durmstrang Head had to be restrained from hexing him. But a thorough check of the rules as presented showed Harry to be in the clear. In fact, this task was to be judged only on doing your recovery, and the order of completion of the Task. Krum was just out of luck. For the next Task he would be facing some massive form of time penalty.

Harry was right about his Firebolt, it was going to need major rehabilitation before it could be used as anything more that a training broom. Dumbledore was shamefaced, he had ignored his Deputy Headmistress's warning to treat the broom gently, and now this...

Krum was surprisingly mellow about it all. He had been far from certain of his chances in the Tournament, and now any failure to win on his part could just be put down to British perfidy, always a good seller in Eastern Europe.

TriWizard VIII

It was a brisk Scottish Highland morning on February 24th, 1995, when Harry Potter walked to the edge of the Black Lake (surface ruffled by the strong breeze) outside Hogwarts Castle to compete in the Second Task of the renewed TriWizard Tournament. Under his wizard's cloak he was only wearing an unfashionable swimsuit, improvised holsters for his newly waxed wand, his all purpose Wizard's knife (Type 3-A from Wilkinson's catalog), and a small supply of Gillyweed Neville had got him that was supposed to enable him to breath water on it being chewed.

It was cold; even with a Warming Charm helping the cloak, the only thing that inspired some heat in him were the glimpses of Fleur Delacour's one piece tightly enclosing her body when some errant breeze blew open her cloak. He tore his attention back to the Ministry official going on about the rules for the Task.

Time limit...yadda, yadda... rescue your 'Treasure'... yadda, yadda... be a good sport and don't kill your rivals... yadda, yadda... All the usual. Harry tried to stay interested in it at least enough that he wouldn't screw things by accidently disqualifying himself. The only reason he hadn't pulled a sit-down strike about this Tournament already was to avoid the loss of his magic for violating a Wizards Oath that (honestly!) he'd never actually sworn. The threat enough was able to get him to compete.

At last the Official Bumf was done with and the Champions each in the place in the que did their preparations for going underwater, and entered the Lake. Viktor Krum half turning himself into a shark; killing his sex appeal with some previous admirers, but enhancing it with some others. Then Harry chewing the Gillyweed Neville had got him and growing gills and webbed feet. Presumably the others did something appropriate for their turns, but by then Harry was deep in the darkness and swimming as fast as he could breathe water to power himself.

Since his Egg had given him his clue in Mermish it was likely the 'Treasures' would be held in the Mer village, traditionally said to be located in the central and darkest part of the Lake. Using one of few the useful things he had learned during Gilderoy Lockhart's tenure as DA Professor he cast three quick spells, and like a safely convoyed ocean liner he stealthily approached the village through a forest of water-weeds.

Suddenly he felt a sharp pain in his foot; a Grindylow had managed to nip him there. They looked like a House-Elf with bigger teeth that had been designed by someone with an octopus fetish. And they were predators who hunted in packs. "Attack!" Harry burbbled out to his trio of escorting conjured-up Electric Eels, who immediately darted to the pack of Grindylows sprinting toward the boy.

As the eels swam through the thickest part of the swarm, sending out high voltage shock-waves disabling the hunters, Harry gave a silent thanks to Hermione who had remembered the spell Snape (of course it had to have been Snape!) had somehow taught Draco Malfoy back in the days of the Lockhart organized Dueling Club. True, Draco had conjured up a land-serpent, but between Hermione and himself Harry had managed to modify the spell and get his Eels. After all, if Malfoy had been able to get a poisonous snake as a Second Year, well... Harry and Hermione together hadn't been stumped in getting the spell changed and operational for the expected underwater event as Fourth Years!

Leaving the silent but deadly underwater conflict behind him, Harry quickly closed in on the Mer village square, where from a series of stone pillars were tied four females in nightgowns.

Two he knew: Cho Chang of Ravenclaw, and Hermione. One of the others was a beautiful blond child, the other a dumpy and grey-haired women of late middle-age. Harry had to decide which was his treasure. Well... Cho was going out with Cedric, so she was accounted for. Hermione had been to the Yule Ball with Krum, so that was a possible tie-in. But who was the older woman for? The young girl was no one Harry had known either. It was certainly time for WWHD thinking.

Despite his hidden crush on Cho it made the most sense that his first impression was correct, so Cedric was accounted for. Not knowing the older woman or the child they couldn't be for Harry. Presumably then one was Krum's or Delacour's 'Treasure', either a love interest or mother. Which probably left the other one involved with the little girl, again either a (forbidden!) love interest or a relative. So Hermione was the 'Treasure' for Harry, which felt just about right. He proceeded to cut the ropes binding her to the stone pillar and began swimming to the surface as soon as she was freed.

Up above the onlookers saw Grindylow bodies float to the surface; some seemingly untouched but unconscious, some still witching with bleeding gashes and gouges in their bodies.

It was a bit awkward, the journey to the surface and then the trip to the Judges' Table carrying Hermione. Because... well... she was a girl, and a wet nightgown revealed that she was growing up right pretty to both sight and touch (well, he had to carry her until she was revived by the Judges, right?), something he hadn't really noticed so much during the normal day-to-day, seeing her wrapped up in full (and dry) clothing and her Witch's robe.

So Harry was the first to show up on the surface, having devised a way to defend himself without having to slow up. Even the Durmstrang Judge couldn't find a fault with him, and so Harry Potter went into the lead for the TriWizard Tournament.

TriWizard IX

It was a brisk Scottish Highland morning on February 24th, 1995, when Harry Potter walked to the edge of the Black Lake (surface ruffled by the strong breeze) outside Hogwarts Castle to compete in the Second Task of the renewed TriWizard Tournament. Under his wizard's cloak he was only wearing an unfashionable swimsuit, improvised holsters (held to his arms and right leg by thick rubber bands) for his newly waxed wand, and three all purpose Wizard's knives (Type 3-A from Wilkinson's catalog).

It was cold; even with a Warming Charm helping the cloak, the only thing that inspired some heat in him were the glimpses of Fleur Delacour's one piece tightly enclosing her body when some errant breeze blew open her cloak. He tore his attention back to the Ministry official going on about the rules for the Task.

Time limit...yadda, yadda... rescue your 'Treasure'... yadda, yadda... be a good sport and don't kill your rivals... yadda, yadda... All the usual.

At last the blather ended, and the Champions lined up in the order they'd hit the water: Krum, Diggory, Potter, Delacour.

When Viktor Krum transformed his upper body and head into the front part of a shark it was all that Harry could do not to pump his fist into the air and give a shout of triumph; those hours that Padma, Lavender, and Kandice had spent spying on Krum doing his preparatory spell work and physical training down by the Lake had given Hermione and Harry the key to what one of the elite students of Europe thought was a viable strategy. Of course, everyone had agreed that spying on Cedric was wrong, him being a fellow Hogwartsian, and Fleur's security team of Beauxbatons students had proven impenetrable to the resources the Gryffindor intelligence team could devote to her. Hermione had loyally helped Harry in his spell crafting, but refused to spy on Viktor as she was going out with him.

Krum waded out into the water, and slowly submerged himself from view. Cedric then cast a spell on his own head, causing a transparent bubble, (similar to those shown on '50's illustrations of what stylish space travelers would wear) to appear. And then he went into the freezing Lake.

Harry slipped off his cloak, took his wand in hand, and preformed the HGL (pat. applied for) transformation… named such for though the design was strictly a Gryffindor in-house one. It had been Luna Lovegood who had been sitting with the Gryffs in the Library when the original scouting report on Krum had been delivered, and suggested what a neat case of one-upmanship the spell would be.

_"Architeuthis!" _ He called out, and transformed into a (smallish) Giant Squid. How he felt while transforming was now, as it had been all the times he had practiced the spell, literally indescribable, but unpleasant. He hoped that the Animagus transformation wasn't as bad, or Professor McGonagall must have a horrid time the first week of school, showing off to the Firsties.

He sort of slithered out of his cord-tied swimming trunks, and into the the water. The rubber banks were tight enough to keep all his essential equipment pretty much where he could access it quickly. Yes! He'd finally gotten himself into a situation for which he had thought of everything!

Of course the difficulties of researching the spell mechanics had been dwarfed by figuring out how to reverse it while being a squid. Finally, it was Hermione who had managed to figure out a set of wand motions (lots of tentacles and arms to use, as a squid) and burbled water sounds that would do the trick. Harry dragged himself into the water, and used sucked in water to jet propel himself toward the center of the bottom of the Black Lake, where all reason said the 'Treasure' would be found. Harry just hoped that the Colossal Squid that greeted students in September was either away visiting relatives, or not inclined to be a bully with smaller, visiting specimens.

With his sleek hydrodynamic form, and powerful jet propulsion, it didn't take Harry long to spot the Mer village with his large-as-dinner-plate eyes. A pack of hunting Grindylows had spotted him on the approach, but seeing him silhouetted against the lake top, with nothing to give them a sense of scale, they had quickly given up the thought of attacking him as a bad idea.

There, in the village square, were four stone pillars: one with Ron tied to it, one with Cho Chang, one with a beautiful girl of eight or nine, one with Hermione herself attached. All seemed to be unconscious and in no distress. As Harry stopped for a moment to analyze the situation (WWHD) two trident armed Mermen began to swim rapidly toward him, evidently with intent of keeping the fearsome predator he appeared to be from the defenseless 'Treasures'.

Without enough time to think things through properly, Harry acted like a Gryffindor. He jetted forwards, adding to his speed meanwhile by thrashing his limbs, and as he zoomed past the guards he released a vast cloud of ink, obscuring his form from their three-pointed thrusts.

Before the guards had had a chance to get themselves reorientated and reorganized, Harry was at the hostages (because that was how he thought of them). Out came the Wilkinson's steel (he'd only taken the extra ones along, borrowed from his classmates, due to a casual comment from Lovegood that "You never know when you might need another one."), and he freed Hermione, Cho, and the young girl in a minute. Even though he had been a prat so far about the whole TriWizard thing, Ron was finally freed by Harry also; after all, it was hard to see who else would bother to do that job.

Then, faster than Mermen, despite clutching a person in four of his arms, Harry set off diagonally upward to the light. On breaking the surface he turned around until he spotted (through eyes seeing things with a great deal of blurring, being adapted for underwater work) the Judges' Table and set out for it. He felt a sharp pain in one of his dangling tentacles, and set out another obscuring cloud of ink. Then, thrashing with all available limbs, he made his best speed toward the proper part of the shoreline.

At the Table it took the united votes of the two Ministry Judges, and Judge Dumbledore as well, to overrule the Judges from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang who wanted Mr. Potter kicked out of the Tournament (and lose his magic). Instead the other Champions from Hogwarts, Durmstrang, and Beauxbatons garnered no starting time points for the next, and final, Task of the contest.

Harry paid little attention to the high level wrangling. He had found that reversing his transformation in the view of several thousand spectators while lacking both human vocal apparatus and a supply of squid-friendly water was much harder than he had remembered. Eventually he had to retreat back into the lake and submerge himself to regain his human form. And then he had to run back up to his cloak on the shore in front of spectators, completely naked.

_Refer to An 3_

TriWizard X

Harry met Professor Moody coming out of the Maze as he was trotting in toward its cunningly hidden heart, where the Goblet of Fire needed to be grabbed to win the TriWizard Tournament. Probably making sure of the inevitable menaces inside; how delightful!

Despite the best efforts of his friends and tutors Harry, had totally failed to absorb any of the Maze Theory that would have helped him navigate his way into the center where the Goblet was to be grabbed as a sign of victory. Instead he'd just keeping going to the left at every turn, and hope that that would be enough to avoid going around in circles.

The tall and vision-blocking hedgerows were at least not made of thorn bushes (thank Merlin for some favors) as he ran into one confrontation after another. All of them having the effect of either knocking him flying, or tying him up for a bit before he solved the riddle, completed the puzzle, or ran fast enough to evade Ripper-Crabs or Dire Ants, whatever.

It wasn't until he was getting winded, and his legs were sending him messages that he had better not be planning on too much more effort from them that he came upon what might be called a secret home-field advantage. A "darlin' little Blast-End Skrewt" Hagrid would have called it. Though, to be fair, the semi-arachnid and flame throwing beastie wasn't anyone's definition of "little" at ten-feet tall and at least several tons. Oh, and its flame wasn't a three inch long plume of gas, but one twenty feet in length.

Still... at least Harry had a basic idea of how to deal with it: fake high and go low, then once past it, go buckety-buckety as fast as he could before the cumbersome beast could get turned around and get its flame apparatus pointed at him. Like a scorpion its deadliest piece was in its rear, but orientated toward its front.

Harry might have run far enough to have outlasted its short attention-span if the next corner he turned hadn't been into a cul-de-sac of perhaps fifty by fifty feet, with a marble plinth in the center. On it rested the Goblet of Fire.

'Yippee,' thought Harry. 'I get to win the Tournament, and be burnt to death at the same time, how lucky can a guy get?'

He dashed around the short stone pillar, hoping to get the Skrewt to commit to one side of it or the other so that he could scoot around on the other. Alas... Evidently larger size had endowed it with more originality than the smaller models, and it began to go, on tippy-toes, right over the ensemble in the center of the area.

As it inched its way, its belly a good three inches above the Goblet, Harry threw a Blasting hex at its right front foot, hoping to cripple it enough to give him a chance to sprint around it. The hard chitin of the beast proved too tough for his hurried spell; only a divot of grassy turf was blown away. Right from under its foot. Which caused the Skrewt to stagger. Which meant its belly touched the Goblet. Both Goblet of Fire and Too-Big Blast-End Skrewt disappeared, to whither Harry knew not.

The next morning, while reading in the Daily Prophet on how the TriWizard Tournament was still unresolved after the third Task had gone south, the Emergency Obliviator Squad received an alert, and rushed to the scene of a Magical Beast attack. There were Muggles there to be brain-raped of the memory of a huge spider-thing that had been seen in the Little Hangleton cemetery munching on a short man and hideous child, both well roasted. The beast had been taken care of by the Aurors, but they weren't specialists in memory removal, after all.

Lord Voldemort made no appearance that year.

TriWizard XI

Harry met Professor Moody coming out of the Maze as he was trotting in toward its cunningly hidden heart, where the Goblet of Fire needed to be grabbed to win the TriWizard Tournament. Probably making sure of the inevitable menaces inside; how delightful!

Included in the usual pre-Task briefing were some new restrictions, and one item expunged. There was to be no use of Flying: no spells, mechanisms, potions, artifacts, or beasts. Period. End of discussion. Nada. And the use of direct damage to rivals while in the Maze was allowed, even if not exactly encouraged. Harry could see the good reasons for those specific modifications to the standard rules. In any case, he planned to almost-cheat in a different way.

Once he had gotten himself sufficiently deep in the maze of hedges he stopped. He sat down and quickly took off his shoes, socks, trousers, and underpants, putting them into the secure pockets of his Wizard's Cloak (black, student style). Then he semi-emulated Viktor Krum's work at the Underwater Task, but instead of gaining the top-half a shark, Harry transformed himself to have the bottom-half of a properly proportioned (to a 5' 5" boy) grasshopper.

Between Hermione's spell crafting, and Luna Lovegood's detailed knowledge of how mundane (as well as magical and probably non-existent) animals were put together and moved, they had managed to copy Krum's Second Task transformation, modify it, and teach Harry the _Semiorthopetera_ spell in time for him to even have half a day training with it before the event.

At first he just made timid little hops, going from one part of the pathway to another twenty or thirty feet further on. Then he started to go from one section, over the hedge walls, to the one to the left or right, catching a glimpse of further vistas at the top of the jump. And then he got more adventurous.

Hundred yard leaps, a hundred feet up. Spotting the center of the Maze and closing in on it well before the others were even close. He didn't see the frantic skirmishes between an _Imperiused_ Krum and Delacour and Diggory. He only saw his goal.

Landing in the large open space he saw a marble plinth, with the Goblet of Fire on it. He precariously shuffled over to it (his only gaits were hops and a shuffling half-stumble) and grabbed the Goblet. And immediately felt the uncomfortable tug of a Portkey pulling him somewhere he probably didn't want to go.

He arrived into a darkening (he had cracked the Task so quickly that it was hours earlier than anyone could have expected) and dilapidated graveyard. Evidently not the place for his victory celebration. Probably, on reflection, this was where someone would make the yearly direct attempt on his life, he decided. So, he hopped. If he had looked in back of him he might have noticed a startled Peter Pettigrew (and his diminutive Master) trying to put him down with some spell. But Harry was moving too fast, and in an unexpected plane, for the less than ept Death Eater to properly target.

So Harry hopped again and again, zigging occasionally, until the light faded. Then he stopped by the side of a deserted road, cast a _Finite_ on himself, and ended his insectoid adaptation. After dressing he waved his wand in the air, and sure as sure within a minute up showed Stan Shunpike with the Knight Bus to take him to Hogsmeade.

From there to the Judges' Table was a mere stroll.

_Refer to An 3 & 4_

TriWizard XII

Harry met Professor Moody coming out of the Maze as he was trotting in toward its cunningly hidden heart, where the Goblet of Fire needed to be grabbed to win the TriWizard Tournament. Probably making sure of the inevitable menaces inside; how delightful!

Included in the usual pre-Task briefing were some new restrictions, and one item expunged. There was to be no use of Flying: no spells, mechanisms, potions, artifacts, or beasts. Period. End of discussion. Nada. And the use of direct damage to rivals while in the Maze was allowed, even if not encouraged. Harry could see the good reasons for those specific modifications to the standard rules; flying would make a mockery of the whole maze with hazards idea. And Witches and Wizards trying to maim each other over a petty distinction or point of honor was just real life in the Wizarding world.

So Harry felt justified in his grand plan, now he just had to be the first to get to the hidden Goblet for his message to get across. Of all the Tasks the Maze ths was the one least weighted against a younger and less experienced student. It was the Task where a bit of luck would count the most, and in a strange half-arsed way, Harry Potter trusted his luck.

Deal with a Sphinx? Piece of cake. Answers: Man, blue, Luna.

A zone that flips you upside down and set in invisible gelatin? A jet of water to disolve the goo, and _Mobilicorpus_ on himself to get to a place of normal gravity.

A giant Blast-Ended Skrewt? Close your eyes, cast _Lumos Maxima_ right into the Skrewt's face, followed by _Nox_ to thoroughly confuse it while you crawl past it along one of the sides of the lane.

A wide pool of bubbling, foul smelling, and undoubtedly cursed water? Just use an _Engorgio _Charm on a stick and for a few precious moments you have a bridge across it.

At last Harry came to the center of the puzzle, the heart of the Maze, the Goblet of Fire's repository. He walked in to the large plot of turf, open to the sky. He moved over a half dozen steps and sat down with his back against the springy greenery.

After a few minutes Viktor Krum ran into the blind end, and gave a startled leap when he heard a voice behind him say, "Take it Viktor… it's all yours."

"Why haven't you taken the Goblet?" The _Imperiuse_d Krum asked. He had been tasked with..."Don't let anyone get to the Goblet before Potter!" Now that simple command was being flouted by the younger student. Since Potter had actually gotten here first even simple sportsmanship said he should just grab the Goblet and declare himself victor. Instead Potter was making life difficult for Krum after a long evening of difficulties.

"Don't want it," said Potter.

"Then why did you compete?"

Harry ticked off the reasons on his fingers as he said them: "One- I'd lose my magic if I didn't. Two- I don't want anyone to think the dangers scared me off; I'm no coward. Three- It was bloody-interesting figuring out how to solve the problems I had to complete the Tasks. Four- To get to this situation to prove to everyone that I'm not a liar, and that I never did willingly enter the Tournament. To prove I could have won, but wouldn't take the prize because it was never meant for me in the first place. I think that's about it. I guess I'm just a stubborn little bugger."

Potter's rejection of the Goblet almost filled Krum with despair; both the command implanted in his head and his native honesty declared Potter should take the Goblet and revel in his triumph. Almost pleadingly Krum said, "You must-" as he reached the Goblet to bring it to its rightful holder. As he grabbed it both he and the Goblet disappeared.

Harry was startled, but assumed that holding the Goblet had activated it as a Portkey, and brought TriWizard Champion Viktor Krum to the Judges for their official verdict. In a slant-wise way Harry was right. But meanwhile, he had to get out of this convoluted wilderness, and rather than walk all the way he pointed his wand to the sky, and sent up the signal that he needed help. As soon as he was outside and with the other Champions who had failed to grab the Goblet, Harry asked the natural question: "Where's Viktor?"

On being questioned about that, he gave his description of the last five minutes or so. Pandemonium resulted. Even the seasoned Auror, Professor Moody, was seen to be running around in panic. What came about later that evening in Hogwarts dim corridors is a different story, for a different time.

Viktor Krum himself was found a day later with his own very interesting story, involving a graveyard, an inept assassin, and a possessed and arrogant mannequin that had ended up being broken. It was not for nothing that Viktor Krum had been selected the Champion of Durmstrang, the school that actually taught the Dark Arts.

Special added TriWizard: #13

It was a Hogwarts House-Elf who discovered the body of the young man next to the Goblet of Fire. It had been making sure that the Great Hall was ready for the Champions to be announced the next morning, when it came across the unconscious form, a wand in one hand, and a slip of parchment with the name "Harry Potter" with an unintelligible blotch below it, in the other.

The House -Elf (Wingi) knew how to do its duty; it was up in the Headmaster's apartment in a magical flash, and awoke the elderly Headmaster. Groggy as he was, Albus Dumbledore knew something was seriously wrong, even more than usual (or perhaps worse… totally usual when Harry Potter was involved). In any case he dressed immediately, and had the Elf alert the other school heads that the first casualty of the Tournament had already shown up. Then he hurried down to the Hall to survey the scene.

Strapped at the knee of the prone man was th lower half of a magical artificial leg, and shattered on the floor next to the head was a shattered magical artificial eye. The body was covered by the robes of a Hogwarts Professor. A quick check of the wand in the victim's hand showed that the last spell it had cast had been an overpowered _Confundus_. And then Igor Karkaroff and Olympe Maxime rushed in to see what the emergency was. Karkaroff turned paler than usual on seeing the face of the young man. Dumbledore noticed that, and asked, "Your know him, Igor?"

"Da. When I was Those People, he also was with them. One of the more blood-thirsty and crazy ones. Bart Crouch Jr... But he was supposed to have died in Azkaban, correct?"

Dumbledore nodded, he vaguely remembered the newspapers recording that. Once you reached his age reading the obituaries became almost obligatory; finding out whom among your old friends (and enemies) had recently died. The man's face, however, didn't ring a bell. In the hectic days at the end of the first Voldemort War there had been so many trials, so many accused... Perhaps if he had been head of the Wizengamot at the time he'd have noted such a prominent family being involved but he hadn't taken that office until several years afterwards.

His curiosity got the better of him, and he began to go through the pockets of Crouch's robe, and those of the man's trousers. Item after item came up, each if it was identifiable to a person at all pointed toward Alastor Moody, down to the silver flask in a back pocket that had that name on it. A family heirloom, Albus knew, of Moody's. He'd been seen taking regular nips from it all the last few months. The Headmaster popped up the cap, and smelled the contents: Polyjuice Potion.

Dumbledore quickly sent a summoned a House-Elf and sent it up to the Deputy Headmistress's quarters, with a message for her to summon the Aurors. It seemed old Azkaban, instead of being the inescapable fortress of repute, was leaking like a sieve.

Dumbledore immobilized the body with a spell, to prevent any sudden recovery of his senses by Crouch Jr. and an attempted escape.  
Dumbledore mused... after having done such a bang-up job imitating Alastor for months Crouch had finally failed to think things through. After all, why had he thought that (evidently) his _Condundus_ would work bollixing up the Goblet? Hadn't he realized the basic reason the Goblet of Fire was used for selecting Champions was that it was impossible to fool, trick, or befuddle by sleight of hand or spell? An artifact of that antiquity would only still be working if it was well protected beyond any tampering.

Another series of thoughts came to Dumbledore also: when had the impersonation started, where was the real Alastor, and was he still alive?

Author's Notes:

If some of these little chapterlets seem to be linked in your opinion, feel free to mentally join them in sequence.

1- Throwing a monkey wrench into a delicate piece of precision equipment will rarely produce the exact effect you were aiming for, unless it was to reach a complete non-operational status.

2- Originally a Computer was a person who did mathimatical computations in their head or on paper.

3- When the even more difficult transformations of not naturally associated bodily systems was doable by students, why is the Animagus transformation such a big deal? Not as easy to disrupt? Or just a busybody government?

It was very unlikely that Durmstrang taught a partial transformation spell. Therefore that type of formulation would probably be within reach of the Cleverest Witch of Her Generation, the Most Out of the Box Witch of her Generation, and Harry Potter.

4- When Harry put down the Portkey Goblet to get dressed, and then picked it up again it proved to be able only to go one way through Hogwarts' protections and wards. It was never intended to be a round-trip ticket.

I would like to thank Nate Huss for slogging through my own version of Haruhi Suzimaya's Endless Eight, and editing the little adventures above into useable form.


End file.
